Authors: Glen Cook
“Where can we go?” Maya asked.
“Good question.” There had to be somewhere nobody would think to look, someplace we could get in and out of without anybody noticing. Someplace we could live a while without the regular business of life giving us away. I couldn’t think of anywhere perfect, though I had a few morally indebted ex-clients who might put me up.
Maya asked, “How about that apartment across from Hester’s? She’s gone and everybody’s sacked her place, so nobody ought to be interested in the building. And you know that squeaky little guy isn’t going to come back.”
“Squeaky?”
“Yeah. You know. Dorky and creepy at the same time.”
She was right. The place was as decent a hideout as we were likely to find. We headed over there. We had no more trouble getting inside than we’d had before. It must be nice having the kingpin holding an umbrella over your head.
Sometimes. Hadn’t done me that much good, had it?
We barely got inside before Maya started grumbling. “I’m hungry.”
“I saw some stuff in the kitchen when I tossed the place.”
The apartment hadn’t been set up for living. The stores consisted mostly of stuff that couldn’t be put together into a decent meal. As we did our best, I asked, “Why didn’t you have Dean feed you before you left?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Point. I had too much on my mind.” I stirred some goop and wondered why Dean hadn’t been able to find anything Jill had left. The note she had left here indicated that what the Sons of Hammon wanted was safe. There would be no safer place than with the Dead Man, so I couldn’t see her taking it out of the house.
I wondered how she’d planned to collect it later if that had been her plan. I wondered what the hell it was. The missing Terrell Relics Peridont had wanted me to find? Possibly. But it didn’t seem likely the Relics would get a heretical cult so excited they’d risk destruction to glom them.
Once again I was back to a need for research. Thanks to Dean and the Dead Man I knew what the cult was and what it wanted, but that information was pretty spare. I had to know more about what they believed and why they believed it. A lot more.
Though if I could lay hands on Jill, that might not be necessary.
“Look. I found some wine,” Maya said. She seemed pleased, so I was pleased for her, but the discovery didn’t excite me.
“Good. Put it on the table.” I went on thinking, about the kingpin. His people had been quiet for a while; probably lying low until the outrage died down. It would. It always does in TunFaire. Who could stay exercised about the deaths of a bunch of weird strangers?
The wine wasn’t bad as wines go. Whoever laid in the stock had expensive tastes. It helped the rest of an absurd meal go down with less difficulty.
I said, “Dean’s gotten me spoiled. I’m getting so I expect decent food all the time.”
“We could eat out.”
I gave her a sharp look. She was teasing. But she added, “You promised.”
I did? That’s not the way I remembered it. “Maybe after this is over. If you can stand getting fixed up.” It had been a while since Dean’s niece had worked her over. She’d begun to look a little ragged. But hadn’t I, too? “I’m shot. I’ve got to get some sleep. We’ll hit the Tenderloin again after breakfast.”
I carried a lamp around to check the possibilities. I could make do in the parlor. I made sure the windows were covered so nobody would see a light moving around, then took my shoes off and started arranging a place to lie down. Suddenly I had about as much energy as a vampire at high noon.
Maya came in. “You take the bed, Garrett. I can sleep in here.”
Old Noble said, “No. I’ll be fine here.”
“Garrett, you need the comfort more than I do.”
Oh boy, here came the old-timer routine. “I don’t play polite games, Maya. Somebody makes me an offer, I only give them one chance to back down, then I take them up on it.”
“Don’t get yourself in an uproar. I meant it. You’re a lot more tired than I am. And I’m used to sleeping on floors and sidewalks. This is luxury for me.” But there was the ghost of something like a twinkle in her eyes, like she was up to something.
“You asked for it, you got it.” I headed for the bedroom. Maybe it was just because I was so damned tired, but I couldn’t fathom what she had in mind.
I found out about six hours later.
I usually sleep in the raw. In deference to the fact that somebody might walk in, I sacked out wearing my underclothes. I lay there tossing and turning, worrying the case, for maybe seven seconds before I passed out. Next thing I knew I wasn’t alone. And the someone with me was very warm, very naked, and very female. And very determined. And I sure don’t have much will power.
There are limits to the nobility of even the best of us good guys. When she turned on the heat, Maya didn’t have any trouble getting past mine.
It turned out to be one truly amazing morning.
43
I had Maya slicked down and spiffed up in some clothes I’d swiped from Jill’s apartment. I swear, the girl grew more beautiful by the minute — the woman, I should say. There was no doubt about that now. What she lacked in experience she made up for in enthusiasm.
I helped her with her hair and with a touch of makeup. She was going to need grooming lessons. When she got a hold on that she’d be deadly.
“I hate to do it, but I’m going to have to destroy the whole effect,” I told her after I showed her herself in a mirror. “I can’t take you outside looking like that.”
“Why not?” She liked what she saw, too.
“Because you’d attract too damned much attention. Come here.” When I finished she didn’t look like Maya at all. “Pity we can’t do as much for me.”
“Do we really need to disguise ourselves?”
“Probably not. But there are people out there who want to kill us. It can’t hurt. And we can’t be hurt if nobody can find us.” I didn’t have the means to change my own appearance much. I thought about Pokey Pigotta and some of the tricks he’d used, like putting a rock in his shoe, walking stoop-shouldered, carrying a couple different hats and changing them randomly, and so forth. The hat trick I could do. There were several in the walk-in here. And everybody who knew me knew I’d wear a hat only when I had to to keep from freezing my ears off.
I picked the most absurd topper, one people who knew me knew I wouldn’t wear at sword point. “How do I look?”
“Like a buzzard nested on your head.”
It did look a bit like a three-cornered haystack. I’m glad sartorial display is a vice confined to the better classes. I’d hate to try to keep up with fashion.
There were a few odds and ends of clothing, too, but all for a man so much shorter there was no using them for anything. So I had Maya use touches of lampblack to give my cheeks and eyes a hollow look, practiced a stoop and slight limp, asked, “You ready?”
“Whenever you are.” She gave it a double meaning. The child seemed happier than ever I’d seen before.
You devil, Garrett. How do you get into these things?
You give in to yourself and you undertake a contract no matter how casual the collision. This was more than casual because this was somebody I cared about, independent of the body that had moved with mine ….
Dammit, sex always complicates things.
We hit the street looking like poor folks. Like almost everybody else out there. I did my limp and stoop to perfection, I thought, and invented a history to explain it if anybody asked. I had been wounded at Yellow Dog Mesa. Nobody asked what you did in the war. The fact that you’d gotten out alive was commentary enough.
I wondered what Glory Mooncalled was doing. There had been no talk for days. That meant nothing, of course. That’s the way war works. Long periods of inaction sandwich brief, intense periods of combat. But I had a feeling something interesting would happen soon.
I wondered how the Dead Man was dealing with the bureaucratic siege. If he was as impatient with them as he was with me, they were going to regret bothering him.
We stopped at a third-rate place and ate, then ambled down to the Tenderloin. It was noon when we got there. The noon hour is one of the district’s secondary peaks. Those who can’t get away in the evening escape work for an hour to appease their hungers. Maya and I planted ourselves on the same bench we’d used before to watch the players parade. The day people were more furtive than those at night. Quite a few made some effort to disguise themselves. Once again I spent some time pondering the curiosities of human nature. What a species.
“I think we’re some kind of practical joke on the part of the gods,” I told Maya.
She laughed. She understood without me having to explain. I liked that. In fact, I was beginning to like a lot of things about her, in ways I hadn’t when she’d been a charitable project.
She sensed that, too. She touched my hand and gave me a big “I told you so” smile.
Whoa! This wasn’t going my way at all. I didn’t even understand it. Garrett doesn’t get involved. He makes friends and leaves them smiling. But he doesn’t get caught up inside any commitment.
Damn it, mis was a raggedy-ass kid I’d saved from abuse and exploitation. This was a project ….
I smiled at myself. You have to do that when you’re wriggling on a hook of your own device.
I watched the barker across the way. “I think we have a small problem.”
“What?”
“I need to talk to that guy. I can’t without letting him know it’s me. And that cancels out my disappearance.”
“You must be getting senile, Garrett. You just tell him Chodo says forget he ever talked to you. He’ll forget.”
She was right. The man would chomp down on what he knew until somebody twisted him good. Nobody ought to have a reason. “You’re right. I am getting senile.”
“Or maybe you’re just worn out. You did real good for an old guy.”
I spat into the gutter. It’s a wonder I didn’t hit my mind. “You just aren’t used to a real man.”
“Maybe.” There was a sort of soft purr in her voice. “You want me to go tell him you want to see him?”
“Sure.”
I kept one eye on the place we’d visited last night. One old guy came out. Nobody went inside. I was surprised there wasn’t more traffic. It seemed the kind of place that would appeal to the crowd that came down during the day. I still thought the guy who came up with the idea was a genius. We all need somebody to talk to. I did myself.
I sort of spread it out among Dean, the Dead Man,
Tinnie, and Playmate, maybe opening up more to Playmate than the others because I have no relationship with him other than friendship. And there are things I don’t feel comfortable telling him because I value his good opinion.
Maya sat back down. “He’ll be here in a minute. At first he didn’t believe it was you.”
“But you convinced him.”
“I can be pretty convincing.”
“No lie.” I hadn’t stood a chance once she went to work on me seriously. But that’s my weak spot.
The barker settled beside me a few minutes later. He leaned forward to look into my face. “It is you.”
“Last I looked. What’s happening is, I’ve disappeared. Maybe run out of town. You aren’t seeing me. You’re seeing some guy who came down here to gawk.”
He lifted an eyebrow. Damn, I hate it when people steal my tricks.
“It’s getting tight. The organization is under pressure. Some of us are turning invisible till we make it ease up.”
“What’s going on, anyways? Tied up here, all I hear is crazy rumors.”
“You haven’t heard anything as crazy as the truth.” I told him some of that, including a few details of the attack on Chodo’s place. He didn’t want to believe me, but the story was so outrageous he accepted it.
“That’s weird,” he said. “They must be really sick. I’m ready to help. We all are down here. But I don’t see what I can do.”
“Near as we can figure, there are two people who know what we need to put this mess away. One is the woman I was asking about. I can’t give you a name because she uses about a hundred, but I’m pretty sure she’s working that place over there.”
He looked at it and sneered. “Doyle’s wimp house. All that gorgeous pussy and half of them don’t put out. You figure it, paying just to look.”
“Takes all kinds to make a horserace. If people weren’t strange, you and I wouldn’t be in business.”
“You got a point. What do you need to know?”
“Have you seen an outstanding blonde in and out of that place?’’
“Several of them. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
I couldn’t be. Jill Craight, for all her looks, had had a sort of nebulous quality, like she really was a whole gang of people, each one a little different from the others. “Forget her. I’ll assume she’s working that place. I’ll get to her if she is. I’ll just sit here till I spot her. How about that guy I came charging out after last night? When you didn’t have time to talk?”
‘’What guy was that? I was pretty busy.’’
“Maya, you describe him. You got a better look.”
“Not that good. He was short, kind of chunky, had a big nose that looked like it got broken once. His skin was kind of dark. He was bald but you couldn’t tell that if he was wearing a hat. He was dressed in real dark clothes both times. Kind of sloppy, even though the clothes were good ones. Like he wasn’t used to wearing them.” And so on. And so on. I wished I had an eye as quick and sharp.
The barker said, “Come to think of it, I did see a guy like that before you came roaring up. Only reason I noticed was he was headed out like a demon was chewing his ass.”
“So?”
“So that’s all I can tell you. He lit out.”
That was what I’d expected to hear. “Did you recognize him?”
“You mean, do I know who he is? No. But I’ve seen him around. Hits the Tenderloin every four, five days. Used to come in for the shows. He’s mostly dropped that and the joyhouses since Doyle come up with his silly talk house.”
“Don’t seem so silly when you think about it.”
“No. Guess not. The old fart is cleaning up. I tell you, I’ll never understand the freaks that come down here.”
I thought he understood them all too well, but I didn’t say so. If guys like him didn’t understand, they wouldn’t be successful catering to people who needed the comforts of a Tenderloin.